Ten in Minecraftia
by Almanorek
Summary: The TARDIS brings the Tenth Doctor to Minecraftia. Hilarity ensues.
1. Chapter One

Amy was, once again, going through the TARDIS archives. In her youth, she always loved to watch monster movies, and seeing all of the Doctor's earlier adventures was like a real-life extension of that past-time. One particular file was simple marked "UNKNOWN". Curious, she loaded it onto the viewer and began watching.

A young man she had never seen before appeared before her, talking to the camera. She supposed it must be one of the Doctor's earlier regenerations. The man looked worried, almost panicked. "Alright, I'm saving this because it may be the last thing I ever say. Something is creeping into the TARDIS. Something very strange. This is going to sound crazy, but, it's like this universe is... Eating the angles around me. Everything is turning cubic. Specifically, into one cubic meter blocks."

A small explosion of light came from his left. He glanced towards it, sweat beginning to appear on his face. "I don't know what'll happen when it gets to me, but there's nothing I can do to stop it. I-" He gasped in pain and looked to his hand, which was reduced to a rectangular stump. The rigid shape crawled up his arm, transforming him further. It attacked his torso, legs, and finally, his head. With one last spasm, the Doctor was reduced to a cuboid version of himself, though he looked very much alive. He blinked eyes that lay flat against his level face, and felt his flattened hair with fingerless hands.

The feed cut out for a brief second before starting up again. The rectangular Doctor was standing outside, in an equally cubic world, where he was punching a tree. "I don't realy know what I'm doing, but, I have this drive. This... Instinctual need to punch this. I can feel the wood giving underneath my hand. If I just..." With one last impact, the section of trunk dislodged, turning into a much smaller, hovering cube. The Doctor picked it up. "Interesting."

This odd behavior was immediately overshadowed by the fact that the remainder of the tree was still standing. "What in the world? H-how?" Within seconds, though, his eyes drifted back downwards to the block of wood. "This is insane. There's some new part of me. Some voice in the back of my brain, telling me how to survive here." With a degree of hesitance, he pushed his hand against the side of the block. It sank inwards. The Doctor grunted with exertion, and a moment later pulled outwards again. The wooden block seemed to collapse in on itself, bursting into four equally cubic piles of wooden planks. "No nails, no saw. No problem, apparently."

The feed accelerated as the Doctor continued to assault the remaining tree trunk, converting the pieces of log into planks with the same odd power. He saw the square sun setting behind him and seemed to become frenzied, grabbing cubes of planks and pushing them towards the ground. He stopped, amazed for a second, as the tiny cube expanded and affixed itself to the dirt below him. "Incredible. These materials seem to have some strange affinity for grid-like arrangements." The sun continued to set, and the light around him visibly decreased. His fervor was renewed, and after another couple of minutes, he assembled a small wooden shack. The camera followed him inside, and he sealed the last gap in the structure.

The complete darkness was replaced by a monochrome image as the camera engaged some kind of night vision. The Doctor was breathing heavily, sweating. "The darkness. Frightening. Don't know why. Had to get away." The reason why immediately became evident as he heard hissing and growling from outside. He did his best to block the noises out, closing his eyes and placing his rectangular hands over the ears that were nothing but strange markings on the sides of his head.

The feed cut out once more, and resumed to the Doctor awaking the sound of burning flesh. Grunts of pain could be heard just outside of his shelter, ending in one final gasp, the sound of something large falling to the ground with a thump, and, finally, a brief eruption of smoke. The Doctor tentatively removed one of the blocks of his hut and, once seeing the coast was clear, created a small opening that he could walk through. The last few wisps of pale white dust dispersed, leaving a small hunk of flesh in its wake. It was rotten and green, but he felt a growling sensation in his stomach, lunged forward, and thrusted the scraps of disgusting meat in his mouth. Though he looked green, and worse for wear afterwards, the hunger in his stomach abated, giving him a mild sense of relief.

The Doctor resumed harvesting wood from trees, noticing that their leaves eventually dissolved of their own accord, occasionally dropping saplings, which he pocketed easily despite their large size, as well as, much to his chagrin, delicious apples. He used the acquired lumber to expand his shack, but quickly became frustrated by the lack of technology. "Sure, I have a hut, and that's great, but if I can only work while the sun is up, I'm going to be at a huge disadvantage. I need some way of making light. There's a cliff to the south. I can see small markings in the rock wall. Everything else is pretty uniform, so, markings have got to be significant in some way."

Another quick cut brought the Doctor to the aforementioned stone wall. He was punching the stone pitted with black markings, albeit to no avail. "It doesn't hurt, but, I can tell I'm not making any progress breaking into here. I need a tool." He checked his pockets which somehow managed to contain a couple dozen pieces of planks, saplings, and apples. After munching on one of the latter, he hefted a few tiny plank cubes in each hand. "I need to be able to do something with these." He rolled them around a bit in his hands, trying to find some way of working with them (It was at this point that he realized that despite not having fingers, he was still more than capable of manual dexterity.) until finally, he placed one plank on top of the other. They edges of the cubes snapped together and hovered briefly before shattering, causing four shafts of wood to burst out.

He grinned, pocketing all his materials but a single stick. "Hahah! Meet your maker, rock." He swung the stick at the stone, and while the stick didn't break, neither did the rock. "Well, that could've gone better, admittedly."

He returned to his materials. "There needs to be something else. In some weird way, this world does have some logic. I just need to figure out the rules." He tinkered with the planks and sticks some more. "It looks like creating things largely has to do with shape. A pickaxe shape could work, I suppose. But, as you, or, I suppose, I, in the future, can see," He manipulated the materials, demonstrating how his attempt at crafting failed. "If I lay the materials on the ground next to each other, they fail to connect to each other at all. See here, they sort of just hover and spin around next to each other. I can stack them, like I did to make the sticks, but to make a pickaxe, I'm going to need a larger arrangement of wood than just plank on plank. When I make a stack three items high, though," He worked as he spoke. "They just fall apart. Like that."

"Also, I'm rather curious. One piece of wood makes four cubes of plank. I'm not exactly at risk of deforestation here, but, I wonder if I can undo the process, given the rules of this universe..." He stacked the planks together in a sort of upright square. As expected, they began to glow. "Well that's nice to know." The structure burst, leaving a block that was completely unlike what he expected. "Well then. What have we here?"

He hefted the strange new cube, looking it over. It was unlike anything he had yet seen in this world yet. Tentatively, he placed it on the ground, conjuring a larger version of the small object. "There are slots on the top. Nine of them, in a three by three pattern." He placed a pair of planks on them, creating four more sticks. "I can create new materials using it, like I can with my hands, but if this little grid is any indication, I can use larger arrangements of materials."

The Doctor placed a stick, and a second stick above that, and finally, a plank on top. The arrangement vibrated, waiting for him. He reached forward and grabbed the bottom stick, and with a frankly startling wrenching noise, he tore a wood-tipped shovel from the table. "Yes! Technology! It's no sonic screwdriver, but I'm sure I'll be there in a few days." He swung the wooden shovel at the rock head, but sighed in frustration as he saw no difference between the effects of it, and his hands. "Alright, so, maybe a shovel is better off being used on softer materials, like dirt." He casually brushed the end of the shovel against the ground, and it popped out from underneath him, causing him to drop a meter, and leaving a hovering block of earth next to him. "Wonderful."

With little effort, the Doctor pulled himself out of the ground and replaced the dirt beneath him. He returned to the crafting table, experimenting with different ways of placing materials. After creating a wooden hoe and hatchet, he found himself at the last of his materials. Slightly annoyed, but not really worried since he was inches away from a large forest, he arranged the planks and sticks in a T-shape and grinned once again as the structure vibrated. With one last 'hurrah!' he pulled the wooden pickaxe away, and immediately began swinning at the black ore. Seconds later, he was finally rewarded with a lump of what he could only assume was coal, considering it came from stone, and was currently staining his hands. (Though the stains vanished on their own.)

An identical block of stone-embedded coal was revealed by his excavation, and he continued to mine inwards, intent on depleting the entire vein. With one last swing, he obtained the tenth piece of coal, and more importantly, broke a hole into a large cave. He could see it snake into the darkness, but decided to wait before venturing inwards, as once again the sun was making its descent below the horizon. Punching the crafting table until he could pick it up, the Doctor collected all of his tools and materials and hurried back towards his now-roomier hovel, sealing it behind him and sighing in relief, moments later hearing the almost-musical clacking of bones.

The night vision turned back on. The Doctor seemed much less distraught this time. He placed the crafting table in the corner of the room. "Alright. I guess I'll make some torches now. I'll definitely have to find some way of lighting the blasted things, but in the meantime I can assemble them to pass the time. I wish I could just sleep, but, I can't. I just can't." He grabbed the coal and sticks. "I didn't need nails for the planks, so this should be somewhat easy." He pressed the ends of the stick into the coal, and before he could react, it ruptured into four glowing torches. "Well, apparently I don't need a flame either."

The torches gave off a miniscule amount of light, but he attempted to distribute them around the room regardless. As soon as he placed the first one, the light it emitted magnified by a huge amount, blinding the camera feed for a second before it turned its night vision off. "Oh, brilliant. Literally."

He grabbed the camera and pointed it directly at his blocky face. "Alright. This is night two of my time in, erm, 'block land'. Admittedly, things aren't horrible here. I really only need to eat every so often. I can stay safe as long as I don't venture out at night. Technology is completely illogical, but extremely possible, without the need for advanced tools. Hopefully I'll be able to escape sooner or later, but for now, this is a nice little rest."

CHAPTER ONE: END


	2. Chapter Two

_(It's been seven months since the last chapter, so, I apologize for inconsistencies and any general badness in this chapter.)_

Amy returned to the archives, eager to resume the old Doctor's adventure. After spending just another few days with her own incarnation, she couldn't believe how starkly different they were. She didn't know if a different body meant a different man, or if something had happened to change him.

The camera flickered on, displaying a blurry image that quickly regained focus. The Doctor stood in front of the same gray wall as before, though the small hole he had originally opened up was now a large, comfortable entrance. A pair of torches, attached to the wall through an unknown force, illuminated the first few meters of the stone interior.

The Doctor hefted a battered pickaxe, admiring his handiwork. "You can't make technology without tools, and without so much as a screwdriver, sonic or otherwise, I'm going to need to find the right resources. I can't expect to just find industrial-grade steel laying around, but considering I found coal, not only in a large amount, but also in extremely visible cubes, so, things could be worse."

He tentatively walked into the cave, gripped by an alien fear in the presence of darkness. He held a torch in his free hand, placing it on the floor as he waded into shadow. "It's useless until I place it. Completely bonkers. I love it." He grinned as he continued forward, stopping only when he reached a sharp bend in the contour of the cave. He turned around to survey the now safely-lit tunnel, immediately noticing the telltale black pits that marked the presence of coal, and extracting them with a few whacks from the dented pickaxe.

Just before he exited the cave with his new gains, the Doctor paused. He turned to the opposite wall of the cave. While it was still sufficiently illuminated, the distance from the lights ever so slightly masked the presence of discoloration in the stone. Pulling his pickaxe up once again, he hammered away at it until, rather than the satisfying 'pop' of a liberated cube, he heard the discordant snapping of his trusty wooden tool. The oak fragment scattered to the floor, fading away into nothingness almost immediately.

"All good things come to an end. I'm actually impressed that small hunk of wood managed to do as much as it did. I should try making a new one out of something a little sturdier, but, I seem to have forgotten to grab anything other than these lumps of coal. Standby."

The camera flickered and cut to static for half a second before returning to the Doctor crouched over his crafting table. Two vertical sticks were topped, not by planks, but by three blocks of cobblestone, arranged horizontally. As before, the arrangement vibrated, awaiting his touch. He obliged, reaching out and grasping the handle, extracting a new, stronger pickaxe. "To bring you up to speed, when you break the smooth stone that this cave is made up of, you end up with cobblestone. As far as I'm concerned, it's functionally identical, but I'd wager that a good number of blokes would find this less aesthetically appealing than the regular stuff."

Back in the cave, the new tool easily broke the stubborn block out of its rocky prison. Rather than turning into a collection of shards, like regular stone, or a lump of fuel, like coal, the cube hovered a few inches above the ground in its original form. The Doctor brought it into the light of the nearest torch, noting its beige discolorations. He dragged his fingerless hand across one of them and brought it to his flat nose, sniffing lightly. "Iron. And decent concentration, too." He returned to the spot where he pulled the iron ore from and, upon placing another torch down, saw that there was more. A little bit of manual labor later, and he had a small collection of blocks.

Upon noticing the sunlight fading just outside the cave, the Doctor retreated to his home. Its construction was decidedly more house-like, with a cobblestone floor and only a small amount of dirt in the walls. He had even managed to create a door. After closing it behind him, he looked at the camera. "My favorite part of my day, as I'm incapable of sleep, is the night. Once I managed to keep myself safe from the outdoors- not that I know what I'm even afraid of- I realized I had all this time to spend just slapping together different squares into this grid."

He walked over to it and began pulling dozens of cubes from his pockets. "I've got a lot of stuff now, and, well, frankly, I could use with a place to put them. I've noticed that if I just leave things on the ground, they'll disappear after a while. So some sort of box would be nice." The camera feed sped up as the Doctor tried various combinations of materials, resuming when he had eight spots filled with wooden planks, the empty one being in the middle. The formation began to hum, and a small, new cube appeared in the empty space. The Doctor grabbed it, causing the remaining planks to shatter. He eyed the new block. "Amazing. It's not even the same color of wood, and it looks like there's a latch." He placed it next to the crafting table, causing it to expand solidify itself. "A treasure chest, blimey."

After throwing most of his belongings into it, he continued to tinker, exploring the possible uses of his new iron ore. "It doesn't work with anything, but everything I've learned so far says that either my hands, or this table, turn things into other things. But, to be fair, this is ore. Ore generally needs to be processed before it becomes workable metal. The easiest and oldest method of processing ore is to heat it up, so, I'll need to figure out how to accomplish that. These torches don't generate any heat, but that doesn't mean the coal doesn't. If ore processing follows the train of thought that I need a device to change things, then I need to make some sort of heat-inducing crafting table."

The first arrangement the Doctor tried was a two by two square of cobblestone, but he was met by disappointment. "No, that makes sense. I needed the crafting table to make a pickaxe. There's a strange sense of progression here. It needs to be bigger." The next arrangement was nine cobblestone blocks, but that too did nothing. On a whim, he removed the center block, and the signature vibration of a viable recipe presented itself once again. Just like with the chest, a new block was pulled from within the other eight. Upon placing it, the Doctor noted that it had two slots, one above the other. Continuing his experiments, he placed the iron ore in the top slot, and some logs, a reasonable source of energy, in the bottom. Immediately, the block roared to life, the wood becoming immediately consumed in an orange corona of light. One of the blocks of iron ore drifted towards the center of the top slot, the rest retreating to the rear. The lone block began to glow, becoming increasingly vibrant until, in a brief flash of light, the block was replaced by a light-gray bar.

The Doctor reached his hand in very slowly, becoming more confident as the furnace's apparent heat either didn't transfer to him, or simply didn't exist. He pulled the bar out, flipping it around in his hand. "Yep, it's iron. Good iron, too."

He looked back into the camera. "Alright. I think this is a good stopping point. This is day eight of my 'adventure', and if I ever get back to the TARDIS, it'll be called 'chapter two'. Whoever ends up watching this- if anyone does- I hope your having more fun than I am."


	3. Chapter Three

"Day, erm, seventeen, I think. Sixteen or seventeen. I spent a while underground. Maybe overnight." The Doctor sat in the corner of his makeshift house, passing a stick back and forth between his blocky hands. "Right, anyway, I've learned a small bit about the world I'm in. First and foremost- I was right to be afraid of the dark. There are these... Things. I saw one as I was heading back home from the cave. It was green. Like leaves. Four feet. Not legs, but feet. And a long neck. Or torso, I can't tell. And it was... Hollow... It looked right at me, and I looked at where its eyes should be, and I just saw two holes. It hissed at me, and that was all I needed to hear before I ran for my life."

He stood up and walked over to his storage, which had increased from a paltry chest to half a dozen of them. He opened one up and pulled out a few piles of steak. "Additionally, it looks like meat doesn't rot, and livestock are plentiful. I didn't even realize I had been hungry until I gobbled down one of these. Now I can actually run around, and, I can barely believe this, somehow, being on a full stomach regenerates me, and I even get to keep my rather handsome body."

He walked outside, closed the door behind him, and began to head north. "I've sequestered myself to my house and my cave for the past couple of weeks, and I think it's time I start exploring. I've no idea what's out there, but it's time to find out." The camera feed shifted into a montage, clearly edited manually, showing the Doctor navigating various natural obstacles, swimming through rivers, climbing up and across mountains, and sprinting across open plains. As the sun started to set, the video returned to realtime.

"Alright, so, bad news, if I don't find some place to stay soon, I'm going to be green-thing-chow. Good news, I think I see some buildings." He hurried over to an arrangement of wooden and stone structures. Seeing no one around, and seeing the very ground darken around him, he ran inside the nearest building, closing the door behind him.

The first thing the Doctor noticed was the glass. Windows, letting him see outside. "Hm. Should've thought of that. Sand, in the furnace, I'm guessing." The second thing was that he wasn't alone. Two humanoid creatures stood behind him. They were like humans in almost every way, though their skin was a pale pink. Their heads, while still cubic, were very tall, at least compared to his. By far, though, the feature that stood out most was their large noses, which hung from the center of their faces, like most noses do, down past their chins. Each of them wore an. One white, and the other black.

"Ah, well then. Hi there. Sorry for barging in. I just needed to get inside, to get away from, well," There was a loud smashing noise, and a quick turn showed a green-skinned, rotting person hammering on the door. "That." The hammering continued. "That'll hold, right?"

The humanoids said nothing.

"Do you, ehm, can you understand me? I'm the Doctor. Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." He held his hands up, but was still met with silence. "Are you guys, I dunno, hungry?" He pulled some of the steaks out of his pockets and held them forward.

Immediately, the white-aproned person's eyes lit up. He hurried over, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a green gem.

"Oh, is that for me? That's quite the emerald." He reached for it, but as he did, the person recoiled his hand, holding out the other, free one, with a small grunt. "What's the matter? Oh! The steak! Of course, this is a trade!" He put the steaks in the waiting hand, and with a half-second of hesitation, took the emerald.

He looked it over, holding it up in the torchlight for a better view. "Marvelous. Can't speak a word, so far as I can tell, but their first instinct is to barter. This looks pretty valuable, too. Must've had to mine it. Don't know what it's for, though. My first instinct is some kind of currency, but in this place, you can never be sure." He looked at the black-apron toting villager expectantly. "So, you tell me, what can I use this for?" He extended his arm forwards a bit.

The villager responded, walking towards the back of the house, to a row of shelves, grabbing something, and walking back over. He held out a dusty book, the damage of age apparent in the form of discoloration, possibly water damage. The faint image of what appeared to be a wrench was drawn in the remnants of faded ink. "Well what do we have here?" The Doctor reached forward with both hands, relinquishing his new gem for the tome. Curious, he opened it slowly, wary of ruining the book any further. It was mostly pictures, though there were labels and captions for everything. Interestingly enough, there were diagrams; arrangements of objects in a three by three grid, with a new object, or tool, or block on the bottom.

Despite the torn pages, blotted images, and incomprehensible text, the Doctor's expression was that of pure joy. "This is technology! Not just hatchets and picks, but generators, and electricity! I don't see anything about making a time machine, but, this is a huge stepping stone. Thank you, so much." He received a blank stare in reply. "Well, you certainly won't keep me company, but, you've been a tremendous help. If you ever find more of these books, no matter how old, please, let me know."

After some time, the sun began to rise. Outside, the rotten man who had been pounding on the door spontaneously lit on fire, flailing around as flame consumed it. After a few seconds of the pyre, it keeled over, bereft of life, and burst into a small cloud of smoke, leaving behind a few chunks of meat and several small glowing orbs. The villagers stepped outside and began going about their business. The Doctor followed them past the doorway, but immediately made a beeline for the creature's remains. The spheres reacted to his presence, immediately zipping towards and into him. He paused for a moment, taking in the notion that they had been completely absorbed by him. "Tastes very faintly of citrus. But I feel, I dunno, better. Not as in the opposite of ill, though. I just feel... Not stronger, or faster, or anything like that. Just, better. Interesting." He picked up the now clearly rotten meat, and pocketed it with a slight grimace. "I'm sure it'll come in handy somehow."

A quick camera cut left him standing outside of his house again, book in hand. "Alright, so, on my way back, I gave this a once-over, and, while I still need to translate the bulk of it, it looks like there're some resources I still need. First and foremost, there is a powder, which looks like it serves as this world's silicon, or something like it. It's the basis of all the circuitry in this book, which is required in almost every piece of technology. There's a picture of it, but I can't understand anything else about it, so, I'm going to do a bit of reading and figuring, and see what I can find out. This is, day seventeen or eighteen, chapter three of 'cube world'. Whoever's watching this... Root for me."


End file.
